Serbian factory casts deadly shadow as red rain falls

CANCER rates around a Chineseowned steel mill in Serbia have quadrupled in less than a decade, with residents describing red rain and a greasy, rust-coloured dust that settles on everything outdoors for several months a year.

The worrying statistics have led to calls for Hesteel, one of world’s largest steelmakers, to clean up the Smederevo plant – Serbia’s biggest exporter – and underlined fears that Beijing’s strategic investments in the Balkans are allowing Chinese companies to ride roughshod over environmental concerns.

Zoran, 70, is a throat cancer patient who speaks with a voice prosthesis after his larynx was removed. He said locals were forced to dry their laundry indoors and use vinegar to clean their cars.

“Water cannot wash it off,” he said. “We do not go out. We do not dare.”

The number of cancer cases around the steel mill has risen sharply, from 1,738 in 2011 to 6,866 in 2019, according to public health data obtained by Tvrdjava, an environmental group.

“The air in the town is far below European standards for 120 days per year,” Nikola Krstic, the head of Tvrdjava, told Reuters. He said an analysis of

the red dust in the city of Smederevo in September showed a high concentration of heavy metals: “Red dust is greasy, it sticks to lungs, makes breathing difficult.”

Locals believe the pollution has become worse since 2016 when the loss-making plant was bought by Hesteel for €46 million (£39 million).

However, the company said it has invested €300 million in trying to cut the pollution since taking over.

“We are all citizens of Smederevo. Would we be working despite pollution, against ourselves and our children,” asked Ljubica Drake, the plant’s manager for environmental protection.

She said it was “not correct” to conclude that higher cancer rates were caused by the plant’s emissions, instead suggesting that they may have been caused by Nato’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 during the war in Kosovo.

But the issue highlights Belgrade’s willingness to look the other way over health and environmental complaints to avoid damaging its so-called “steel friendship” with Beijing.

The Smederevo plant, which produces up to 160,000 tons of steel a month, is part of an investment of more than $10billion (£7.4billion) that China has made in the Balkan state between 2005 and 2019.